


Hubris

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 18:24:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17513624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: Romana, Leela, Narvin, and Braxiatel explored many varied Gallifreys. Few were quite as silly as this one.





	Hubris

As the gathered High Council awaited the arrival of the Lord President, four onlookers stood watching the gathering. Romana, Leela, Narvin, and Braxiatel kept themselves hidden in the upper area of the High Council chamber, not far from the entrance to the secret tunnel Romana had led them to.  
“I can hear them discussing their President,” Leela said in a hushed tone, careful not to alert anyone of their presence. “My eyes may be blind, but my other senses are just as sharp as they have always been.”  
“What are they saying, Leela?” Narvin asked. “What kind of Time Lord is this President?”  
“Whoever it is, they can’t be worse than that last Gallifrey,” Romana remarked dryly. “I don’t know who thought Torvald would make a good Lord President, but frankly dispersal is too good for them.”  
“Still, we must be on our guard,” Braxiatel added. “We don’t know how likely they are to find us, or how likely they are to be agreeable to our presence on their Gallifrey.”  
“They do not like him, it would seem,” Leela answered. “Apparently many have tried and failed to slay him for his unspeakable crimes. He must be a mighty warrior.”  
“And if he’s used the position of Lord President to commit such horrors, I doubt he’d be amenable to helping outsiders like us,” Romana reasoned.  
“What could this tyrant have done to warrant such revulsion among his own people?” Narvin wondered aloud.  
“They are saying that he enjoys torturing his own High Council with…” Leela struggled with the word. “Leck...tras?”  
“Some kind of electric or energy-based weapon, from the sounds of it,” Narvin shuddered, fully aware of what such devices were capable of.  
Before Leela had a chance to overhear anything else, the lights dimmed, causing a sudden change in atmosphere even Narvin could read. Automated spotlights started slowly moving towards a wall that those who could see it only now realised was actually a grand curtain. A drum roll that reverberated all around the chamber started to play, and as it reached a crescendo the curtain parted to reveal a figure whose appearance made Romana almost choke on her own breath, Braxiatel groan audibly, and Narvin mutter “oh, Rassilon, why?” with no regard to who heard him.  
“What is it?” Leela asked anyone who would answer. “I am blind, I cannot see what is happening.”  
“Consider that a blessing at this moment,” Braxiatel said by way of reply, still shaking his head in disbelief.  
The Lord President’s curly blond hair and handsome features went completely unnoticed by the three, their gaze inexorably drawn by his voluminous robes adorned in every possible hue of every possible rainbow; a patternless swarm of colour and chaos, complete with collar dyed a shade of red that physically hurt their eyes to behold.  
After posing for a few seconds as if waiting for applause, the Lord President spoke in a haughty voice that inspired Leela to whisper “oh, no” to herself.  
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! Or, rather, friends, Gallifreyans, countrymen, as is the case here,” he paused to laugh at his joke. After all, Braxiatel thought, somebody had to.  
“As you will all know,” he continued, clearly too entranced by the sound of his own voice to notice his audience’s apathy, “I, Lord President Theta, recently came within a hair’s breadth of falling the innocent” - Romana had to stifle a giggle - “victim to a vicious, venomous, vexatious, villainous attempt on mine own life!”  
Leela sighed deeply and threw her hands in the air, one of which collided hard with Narvin’s nose, who hissed “ouch!” but before Leela had the chance to apologise, the Lord President started talking again.  
“Furthermore,” he kept going, “as any of you with as keen a mind for detail as mine will know, this has been the one hundred and fourteenth attempt on my life since I took up this lofty position of Lord President just under two cycles ago!”  
“I can’t imagine why,” Narvin said cynically.  
“No doubt all of you will be questioning how I, a Time Lord of peace and diplomacy, managed to fend off such an assailant!” he announced, as Braxiatel realised exactly what Leela had misheard was his preferred method of torturing his High Council. “Well, I, bravely and single-handedly-”  
Before he had a chance to describe the event in what was sure to be tedious detail, another voice rang out across the chamber:  
“Lord President Theta! You have abandoned your people! While you spend your days talking to yourself in this chamber, you have let your predecessors’ work go to waste!”  
None of the other Time Lords in the chamber reacted to this at all. Romana realised that dramatic speeches of no confidence against this President were as commonplace as the changing of trousers.  
“The Temporal Powers our previous esteemed Presidents fought long and hard to suppress are rising again and taking power! Soon they will rival our time travel capabilities! And while they become a threat to our superiority again, you sit in your chambers, making speeches and doing nothing!”  
“The Temporal Powers have just as much right to the domain of time as we do!” Lord President Theta retorted. “We don’t possess unique charter to time, and nor as a matter of fact should we! There is no-”  
“Enough!” the voice echoed again, seemingly from everywhere. “We True Lords of Time have had enough of your inaction! We will have a leader who will show the so-called Temporal Powers their place, and make Gallifrey great again! We will have-”  
Romana saw a movement out of the corner of her eye, and the voice stopped, replaced by a sudden “hurrrrrk!”. Moments later, a figure fell from the rafters above them, Leela’s prized dagger protruding from his chest. He fell to the ground with a dull thud, and lay motionless.  
“Leela!” Narvin exclaimed in shock. “How did you know-”  
“My other senses are still attuned, Narvin,” Leela responded, and Narvin thought he detected a hint of mild smugness in her voice. “He was so loud I did not need my eyes to find his hiding place!”  
“A-HA!” the President cheered. “You terrorists thought you could take on me, the Lord President of Gallifrey, but my Chancellery Guard has foiled your plot before you could-”  
He was interrupted by the doors being flung open by the Chancellery Guard who rushed in, looked for their target, saw him bleeding out of the floor, looked embarrassed, and left.  
“So, let us now uncover the identity of this would-be assassin!” the Lord President started again. “Prepare thyselves all, for I shall now discover and reveal to you-”  
He was interrupted again by the figure on the floor bursting into light as he started to regenerate, Leela’s knife being thrown from the violently changing form and embedding itself into the wall immediately behind where a yelping Narvin’s face had been moments before.  
As Leela retrieved her weapon, the Lord President’s attacker finally settled into a body the travellers recognised as that of their former ally Hallan.  
“Well, no matter,” the Lord President started for a third time. “We shall soon unearth the identity of this-”  
He was interrupted for a third time by a “bang” of mediocre volume, as a pair of small personal explosives detonated inside Hallan’s robes, leaving two glaring holes in his chest where his hearts used to be. He crumpled to the floor, his body staying pointedly glowless.  
“Well, the nerve of that villain!” the Lord President spluttered, fresh out of face-saving proclamations. “Dying before he could be interrogated! How decidedly uncouth! You know, this reminds me of the seventy-ninth time a fiend like him attempted to prematurely snuff out my life...”  
As the Lord President rambled to the High Council, at least half of whom were napping, Romana shared a glance with Braxiatel, and the two of them nudged Leela and Narvin back in the direction of the secret tunnel, leaving the Citadel and returning through the portal to the Axis. The four of them stayed silent for the journey, assured in their unspoken agreement to never speak of these events again, for fear of reminded each other of the utter embarrassment they had undergone.


End file.
